This list of museums in Wiltshire, England contains museums which are defined for this context as institutions (including nonprofit organizations, government entities, and private businesses) that collect and care for objects of cultural, artistic, scientific, or historical interest and make their collections or related exhibits available for public viewing. Also included are non-profit art galleries and university art galleries. Museums that exist only in cyberspace (i.e., virtual museums) are not included.
Name | Photograph | Town/City | Region | Type | Summary |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aldbourne Heritage Centre | Aldbourne | Wiltshire | Local | Local history, culture, collections of bells | |
Alexander Keiller Museum at Avebury | Avebury | Wiltshire | Archaeology | Prehistoric artifacts, most found at Avebury, also history of the site | |
Arundells | Salisbury | Wiltshire | Historic house | 18th-century home of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath, who lived there from 1985, features his furnishings and personal collections | |
Athelstan Museum | Malmesbury | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, culture, collections of lace, coins, bicycles and tricycles | |
Atwell-Wilson Motor Museum | Calne | Wiltshire | Transportation | website, classic and rare cars, lorries, motorcycles, mopeds, push bikes, memorabilia | |
Avebury Manor and Garden | Avebury | Wiltshire | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, early 16th-century manor house and early 20th-century garden | |
Bedwyn Stone Museum | Great Bedwyn | Wiltshire | Art | information, carved stone decorations and pieces | |
Boscombe Down Aviation Collection | Old Sarum Airfield | Wiltshire | Aerospace | website, restored aircraft, vehicles and artefacts related to RAF Boscombe Down | |
Bowood House | Derry Hill | Wiltshire | Historic house | Georgian country house with interiors by Robert Adam and a garden designed by Capability Brown | |
Bradford on Avon Museum | Bradford on Avon | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, natural history, recreated Victorian pharmacy shop | |
Calne Heritage Centre | Calne | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, art | |
Chippenham Museum | Chippenham | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, culture | |
Chiseldon Museum | Chiseldon | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history | |
Corsham almshouses & 17th-century schoolroom | Corsham | Wiltshire | Historic house | 17th-century almshouses and period schoolroom | |
Corsham Court | Corsham | Wiltshire | Historic house | 16th-century country house known for its art collection, landscape designed by Capability Brown | |
Corsham Information and Heritage Centre | Corsham | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history and information centre | |
Cricklade Museum | Cricklade | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, culture | |
Crofton Pumping Station | Great Bedwyn | Wiltshire | Technology | Early 19th-century steam-powered pumping station with working engines | |
Great Chalfield Manor | Great Chalfield, Atworth | Wiltshire | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 15th-century moated manor house, gardens | |
Kennet and Avon Canal Museum | Devizes | Wiltshire | Transportation | History and heritage of the Kennet and Avon Canal | |
Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot Museum & Village | Lacock | Wiltshire | Multiple | Operated by the National Trust, medieval country home and former abbey, picturesque rural village, museum of photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot and photography exhibits | |
Lackham Museum of Agriculture and Rural Life | Lacock | Wiltshire | Agriculture | information, based at Wiltshire College Lackham, displays of farming, agriculture, rural trades and rural life | |
Little Clarendon | Dinton | Wiltshire | Historic house | website, operated by the National Trust, late 15th-century stone house and chapel | |
Longleat | Horningsham | Wiltshire | Historic house | Elizabethan country house, maze, landscaped parkland and safari park | |
Lydiard House | Swindon | Swindon | Historic house | Palladian stately home with restored state rooms, ground-floor apartments, changing exhibits of local art, culture | |
Market Lavington Village Museum | Market Lavington | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, culture, rural trades, agriculture, domestic life | |
Merchant's House, Marlborough | Marlborough | Wiltshire | Historic house | website, 17th-century-period merchant's house | |
Mere Museum | Mere | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history | |
Museum of Computing | Swindon | Swindon | Science | History of computing and digital development including the Internet and video games | |
Mompesson House | Salisbury | Wiltshire | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 18th-century Queen Anne house with period furniture, collection of drinking glasses, walled garden | |
Museum & Art Swindon | Swindon | Swindon | Art | Holds the Swindon Collection of Modern British Art, and covers local history, archaeology and geology. | |
Oxfam Art Gallery | Salisbury | Wiltshire | Art | operated by Oxfam | |
Pewsey Heritage Centre | Pewsey | Wiltshire | Local | Pewsey Heritage Centre, has a collection that covers local history, social history, and agricultural history of the Vale of Pewsey. | |
Philipps House | Dinton | Wiltshire | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, early 19th-century Neo-Grecian country house with collection of Regency furniture and furnishings, park | |
The Pound | Corsham | Wiltshire | Art | website, performing arts centre with exhibit gallery | |
Purton Museum | Purton | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, domestic life, agriculture | |
Railway Village Museum | Swindon | Swindon | Historic house | Victorian railway worker's cottage. | |
REME Museum | MoD Lyneham | Wiltshire | Military | Artifacts used by the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers including communications equipment, computers, vehicles, weapons | |
Richard Jefferies Museum | Coate | Swindon | Historic house | website, birthplace home and museum of writer and naturalist Richard Jefferies | |
The Rifles Berkshire and Wiltshire Museum | Salisbury | Wiltshire | Military | website, regimental artifacts and history of the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, now part of The Rifles; also known as The Wardrobe Military Museum | |
Salisbury Museum | Salisbury | Wiltshire | Multiple | Archaeology, Stonehenge and prehistory, art, decorative arts, Roman, Saxon and medieval history, social history, costumes, anthropology. Nationally important collections as recognised by the Designation Scheme. | |
Salisbury Arts Centre | Salisbury | Wiltshire | Art | website, performing and visual arts centre | |
Science Museum at Wroughton | Wroughton | Swindon | Science | Features large objects of the Science Museum (London), open only by pre-booked tours in the summer | |
STEAM - Museum of the Great Western Railway | Swindon | Swindon | Railway | Historic locomotives, rolling stock, memorabilia, reconstructed work areas, history of the Great Western Railway | |
Stourhead | Stourton | Wiltshire | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, Palladian mansion featuring a Regency library with collections of Chippendale furniture and paintings, 18th-century landscape gardens on a 2,650 acre (11 km²) estate | |
Swindon and Cricklade Railway | Blunsdon | Swindon | Railway | Heritage railway with museum exhibits open on special events at the Blunsdon railway station | |
Trowbridge Museum | Trowbridge | Wiltshire | Textile | Equipment and exhibits about the local textile industry | |
Warminster Museum | Warminster | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history, geology, also known as the Warminster Dewey Museum, operated by the Warminster Historical Society and housed in Warminster Library | |
The Well House Collection | Melksham | Wiltshire | Local | website, artefacts, exhibits, large interactive photograph collection celebrating Melksham's history, housed in an Edwardian manor. Teas, coffees and refreshments available | |
Westbury Visitor Centre | Westbury | Wiltshire | Local | website, local history displays and visitor centre | |
Westwood Manor | Westwood | Wiltshire | Historic house | Operated by the National Trust, 15th-century manor house built over three centuries, features period furniture, later tapestries, modern topiary garden | |
Wilton Carpet Factory Museum | Wilton | Wiltshire | Industry | information, information, in the same place as the Wilton Town Museum, history and tours of the Wilton Carpet Factory | |
Wilton House | Wilton | Wiltshire | Historic house | Palladian country house with state rooms, art, sculpture, furnishings, gardens and parkland | |
Wilton Town Museum | Wilton | Wiltshire | Local | information, in the same place as the Wilton Carpet Museum, local history | |
Wilton Windmill | Wilton | Wiltshire | Mill | Early 19th-century five floor brick tower windmill | |
Wiltshire Museum | Devizes | Wiltshire | Multiple | Formerly known as Devizes Museum; archaeology, art, local history, social history and natural history of Wiltshire. Nationally important collections as recognised by the Designation Scheme. | |
Wootton Bassett Museum | Wootton Bassett | Wiltshire | Local | Local history, culture | |
Young Gallery | Salisbury | Wiltshire | Art | website, housed at Salisbury Library, exhibits of 19th-century images of Salisbury by artist Edward Young, John Creasey Museum, contemporary British artists and students, with an emphasis on art with a Wiltshire connection | |
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to the west. The largest settlement is Swindon, and Trowbridge is the county town.
Chippenham is a market town in north-west Wiltshire, England. It lies 13 miles (21 km) north-east of Bath, 86 miles (138 km) west of London and is near the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon, where some form of settlement is believed to have existed since before Roman times. It was a royal vill and probably a royal hunting lodge, under Alfred the Great. The town continued to grow when the Great Western Railway arrived in 1841. It had a population of 36,548 in 2021.
Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-century civil war between Stephen of England and Empress Matilda, and again during the English Civil War when the Cavaliers lifted the siege at the Battle of Roundway Down and the Parliamentarian Army of the West under Sir William Waller was routed. Devizes remained under Royalist control until 1645, when Oliver Cromwell attacked and forced the Royalists to surrender. The castle was destroyed in 1648 on the orders of Parliament, and today little remains of it.
Bishops Cannings is a village and civil parish in the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire, England, 3 miles (5 km) north-east of Devizes. The parish includes the village of Coate and the hamlets of Bourton, Horton and Little Horton.
Castle Combe is a village and civil parish within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Wiltshire, England. The village is around 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Chippenham and 10 miles north-east of Bath. A castle once stood in the area, but was demolished centuries ago.
Midford is a village approximately 3 miles (5 km) south-south-east of Bath, Somerset, England. Although relatively small, it extends over 2 counties, is part of two unitary authorities and is part of five parishes. Although all five parishes extend very near to the village centre, most of the residents reside in the parish of Southstoke and are part of the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority.
Coate Water is a country park situated 5 km (3.1 mi) to the southeast of central Swindon, England, near junction 15 of the M4. It takes its name from its main feature, a reservoir originally built to provide water for the Wilts & Berks Canal. Now named 'Coate Water Country Park', the lake and its surroundings are both a leisure facility and a nature reserve.
Yatton Keynell is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is on the B4039 road near Castle Combe, about 4 miles (6 km) northwest of Chippenham, and about the same distance to the east of the county border with South Gloucestershire.
The Bybrook, also known as the By Brook, is a small river in England. It is a tributary of the Bristol Avon and is some 12 miles (19 km) long. Its sources are the Burton Brook and the Broadmead Brook, which rise in South Gloucestershire at Tormarton and Cold Ashton respectively, and join just north of Castle Combe in Wiltshire. The river has a mean flow rate of 57.25 cubic feet per second (1.621 m3/s) as recorded at Middlehill near Box. A variety of flora and fauna is supported by the river including the endangered white-clawed crayfish. Twenty watermill sites have been identified on the river but none now remain in use.
Wiltshire College & University Centre is a tertiary college of education founded in 2002 by the merger of Chippenham Technical College, Lackham College and Trowbridge College. Consolidation was completed with the merger of Salisbury College, which commenced in January 2008. In 2020-21 the institution offered over 1,000 courses and had approximately 3,300 full-time and 6,000 part-time students, with over 800 enrolled on degree-level courses.
In countries whose armies are organised on a regimental basis, such as the army of the United Kingdom, a regimental museum is a military museum dedicated to the history of a specific army regiment.
The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum is the principal art gallery and museum in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, run by Bedford Borough Council and the trustees of the Cecil Higgins Collection.
Orleans House was a Palladian villa built by the architect John James in 1710 near the Thames at Twickenham, England, for the politician and diplomat James Johnston. It was subsequently named after the Duc d'Orléans who stayed there in the early 19th century. By the early 20th century it was derelict and in 1926 it was mostly demolished. However, parts of the property, including a baroque octagonal room designed by architect James Gibbs, were preserved. The octagon room and its service wing are listed Grade I by Historic England and, together, with a converted stable block, are now the Orleans House Gallery, a gallery of art relating to the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and neighbouring areas of London.
Nettleton Mill is a mill house in Wiltshire, England, on the banks of the Bybrook River, to the south-east of Nettleton. Part of the Castle Combe estate, it was built in 1774 as a farmhouse; this date is inscribed on the outer building. The old ruined farmhouse was refurbished in the early 1990s and has been converted into a bed and breakfast cottage.